Week 1: New

A full week with Charming stranger began yesterday. To be dramatic, my whole life is changing and I feel myself clinging to old habits for comfort. Being thrown from a freelance schedule to a strict 9-5 will be tough, but I'm from New York; a place where we thrive on a constant hum of somewhere to be and something to do.

More importantly, I find myself with a fluttering feeling at the thought of the many possibilities for the film I want to create. My one hope for the internship is to be present as possible.

For Mira Nair's masterclass assignments 1-4 and 11:

My family means the world to me. It consists of my mother (Aries), two older sisters (Aries and Aquarius), my grandparents (Libra and Scorpio) and me (Aquarius, Pisces cusp). We are 100% Chinese. 23 and me might disagree, but that's what I know for now. The Chinese have a strong sense of family. We stick together no matter what and we believe in the strength of the community. It's the reason for our fortitude and probably why we think we can treat each other like shit.

For a while, being Chinese meant nothing to me. Growing up in Spanish Harlem, I was around a plethora of races and faces that shaped the person I am today. I was both bullied and loved by my community. It created mixed feelings about my own racial identity until I was able to accept myself; a journey I'll talk about another time.

I fell in love with New York the Summer of 2016. It was a time when I graduated from High School and was able to see the world without the lens of structure. New York can be seen as loud and the energy can be unnerving. But this summer, I saw different. I felt silence within the noise; solidarity in the crowd; aliveness in the dead of night. I've seen many sides in many things and I strive to do this whenever I can.

I believe the purpose of existence, is experience; to understand as much as possible; expanding the possibilities of reality; to see all sides.